Greenhouse Effect - the heart of climate change

Starting with this, we are marking the start of a new journey about the causes of climate change. As you might know, there's a rut around reducing the emissions and it's true - the emissions of greenhouse gases that include Carbon dioxide from industries, Nitrous oxide and Sulphur oxide from vehicular emissions and Methane from the livestock industry and much more. In this blog, we'll discover the picture of the Greenhouse effect in detail.

People are unaware of what is going on. When I talk to people, they know the basics, they know the planet is warming because of greenhouse gases... but they don't know the actual consequence of that.

- Greta Thunberg

Earth - the only planet we know to support life. There are various phenomena responsible for life to sustain on the planet and one of them is the most blamed Greenhouse effect. You might have heard of the Greenhouse effect as a problem but this effect is responsible for maintaining a moderate temperature on the planet. Without the greenhouse effect, the average temperature on Earth would be -18°C! So if it was not the case, I don't think we would have been over here.

So it is not the Greenhouse effect that should be blamed but the rate at which it is taking place. I have mentioned the rate of everything has been increasing since the industrial revolution. The average global temperatures have risen by 1.1°C compared to those during the pre-industrial era[1].

The Main Reason + The Process Behind It

The main reason for the rate of the greenhouse effect being accelerated is the emission of greenhouse gases caused by our industrial activities. Those greenhouse gases account for making up only 0.03% of our atmosphere, but their impact on our planet is due to the amount of energy we receive from the sun.

Every hour, we receive 430 quintillion Joules of energy every second(1 quintillion has 18 zeroes in it!) while the total energy use by humans is 410 quintillion Joules every year. We receive energy in the form of UV radiation of which some amount of energy is reflected by the ozone layer and the rest gets absorbed in our land and oceans. This energy is released in the form of heat (Infrared radiation) which is trapped into our atmosphere by the greenhouse gases, heating up the planet resulting in Global Warming.

By now, I think you would know how harmful are the effects of the increasing levels of greenhouse gases especially Carbon Dioxide (CO2). But do you know where most of that CO2 comes from? Check out the below report chart to get some insights into it.

Credits: US Environmental Protection Agency

We are making it worse by adding more of these greenhouse gases.

We have also added plenty of methane and nitrous oxide (N2O) apart from CO2. This is adding up the greenhouse gases leading towards an increase in the temperature of our planet leading towards Global Warming. This ends up making it a notable culprit of Climate Change.

Stay tuned to know more about the causes of climate change in the upcoming blogs!

One of the big questions in the climate change debate: Are humans any smarter than frogs in a pot? If you put a frog in a pot and slowly turn up the heat, it won't jump out. Instead, it will enjoy the nice warm bath until it is cooked to death. We humans seem to be doing pretty much the same thing.

- Jeff Goodell

References:

1. https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/sites/2/2019/06/SR15_Full_Report_High_Res.pdf

2. Graph 1: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1091926/atmospheric-concentration-of-co2-historic/

3. US EPA: https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions